Caught in the Riptide
by Flightless Hope
Summary: Our memories are like the diamonds cast by the sun onto the sea, brief yet lingering... like the desire to sleep even after it has abandoned us in the night. You are a memory I never expected to keep. (random collection of my Bamon drabbles)
1. Soapboxes and Sarcasm

**TITLE :** Soapboxes and Sarcasm

**TIME PERIOD :** Season 6

**Summary :** Grocery shopping can be exhaustively repetitive, but especially when Mr. Natural Negativity.

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><p>"Sarcasm makes your face ugly."<p>

Bonnie looks at him incredulously. "That is your best shot? That's it?"

Damon sighs dramatically. "There you go again, being all judgy. You know, I'd have been happier taking a swan dive off a cliff instead of being stuck here with you."

She smirks, her eyes flickering. "I'll be happy to push you, Damon."

"That's a little dark for you." He rolls his eyes and elbows her arm for the umpteenth time.

They are grocery shopping again. They have been grocery shopping together for the past 2 months and both of them have yet to find a common ground for that one special little word. Friendship. In the last month itself, Bonnie has felt like strangling Damon and has even strongly considered burning his face on the stove where he makes their pancakes every morning. It's not like those things can kill him, but they might make her feel better… considering Damon is the last person on the planet she wants to share this solitude with.

"For you, I would make an exception."

He looks at her, his expression showing a real sign of interest. "Well that makes me feel special."

She shoves him fruitlessly and walks on ahead. He'd been doing that, openly giving her those unreadable little glances every now and then. It always reminds her of the feeling she gets just before the initial slope of a roller coaster, like her body is one place and her insides are another. Those drops are always the steepest. At first, she'd never questioned why he does it. Today however, she is beginning wonder.

"You think too highly of yourself as usual." Bonnie mutters.

"Maybe it's other people who think too highly of me. Maybe they know something you don't. I mean, I am pretty awesome, Bonnie."

She grabs a bag of pork rinds from one of the racks and chunks it at him. Surprisingly, he is unable to catch it in time and it hits him smack in the face. She laughs loudly, unable to stop herself. Damon grabs the bag out of the basket where it has fallen and glares at her. Before she can react, he shoves the basket forward and hits her square in the rear. She yelps as she loses balance and is propelled forward. Just as she thinks that she will hit the linoleum floor and how much it's going to kill her knees, she feels her momentum stop. The realization hits her and she looks back to see Damon's arm curled around her waist and his face looking down at her, all smug.

Anger instantly lashes through her like a whip. "You are so predictable, Damon. Let me go."

He doesn't move. "See, I thought this was a good lesson for you. Those on a soapbox tend to fall, but then I decided to be a nice guy and catch you." His arm tightens around her waist and she isn't exactly sure if he does this on purpose. "Speaking of predictable," he pauses as something passes through his eyes. "I knew you'd be all judgy on me even after I saved you from a fall."

Their close proximity makes the hair stand up on the back of her neck and her breath hitch in her throat. She had never been this close to him, not like this. He is in total control of her balance. All he has to do is let go and she'd fall. Something about this moment feels so very different… and it frightens her. Damon must have felt something too, because he suddenly lets her back on her feet and turns away so she can't see the expression on his face. Leaning back over the shopping cart, he pushes it past her without sparing a glance. Later on, she will realize that he is deliberately looking everywhere but her direction. She stands there a moment, confused.

What just happened?

"Come on witchy. I'm itching to play a game of Tetris."


	2. We're Lost and Found

**TITLE :** We're Lost and Found

**TIME PERIOD :** Season 6

**Summary :** Is he the only one that knows she talks in her sleep at night?

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><p>She's doing it again, talking in her sleep, and she's very loud tonight.<p>

He smashes his pillow over his face, a stifled sigh escaping his lips. Did he ever say that he hates people who talk too much? He tosses the pillow across the room. Bonnie insert 'judgy chatterbox' even does it in her sleep. He sighs again. Her voice is like an incessant cadence of soft groans. A sudden thought enters his mind and he instantly pushes it away, ignoring the discomfort that follows with it. Regardless of how it sounds, he shouldn't be thinking of her that way.

He _doesn't_.

Averting his eyes, he glances outside his window. The cold stars wink at him from the endless velvet of the sky… taunting him? _Maybe._ He wouldn't be surprised. His track record isn't exactly clean or shiny. He deserves worse. He won't admit it aloud, but having Bonnie here is much better than…

**… being alone.**

'Even if she's the last person on the planet that I'd want here.' his mind grumbles.

It's been just over two months in this place and his patience is already worn thin as it is. Well, what patience he actually does have. He and Bonnie have argued, ignored, and nearly torn the house apart. Well, he had anyway. Bonnie mostly watched him with those probing hazel eyes, the expression on her face just short of pity. That had upset him the most, the way she watched him with… disappointment.

"It shouldn't matter." He mutters.

"No!" Bonnie hollers groggily.

He can hear her writhing restlessly on Stefan's bed. After a lot of convincing, he'd been able to make her stay here, and after further convincing, he'd been able to move her from the uncomfortable couch she'd chosen in the den to Stefan's room. She'd asked him why it mattered and he never really had given her a straight answer.

"Grams!" Bonnie's voice sounds strangled, shook up and uneven.

She's crying. He can tell. She'd been crying the last few nights. The first night had surprised him, but he'd just pushed the sounds away. They make him uncomfortable somehow. He'd been able to ignore her, but tonight is much louder, much worse.

Without thinking, he rises from the bed and grabs his pillow at his doorway before heading to Stefan's room. In the darkness, he can make out the tangled sheet over her body. She's already kicked the blanket off the bed. Her hair is a wild mess around her face and her brows are furrowed deeply. The stretched flesh of her lips almost looks painful as she grimaces and more tears come.

He moves closer, the pillow hanging limply in his hand.

Her chin is trembling. "Momma…"

The whisper does something to him, traveling from his stomach to his heart, dragging it down, _ripping__ it down_. He breathes, his jaw tightening. She tosses again, the movement sharp and unnatural.

Bonnie has always been the one to put all others before herself, even him. After everything he'd done, she'd still found a way to help him, help everyone. Yet here she is. Where are the people to help her back to her feet after she's taken the fall so many times? Where are they?

He cautiously sits on the bed, careful not to wake her. She whimpers quietly and grabs at the sheet, her fingers hooking like claws. Desperate. Her heart is racing and her eyelids are trembling with unsaid nightmares, nightmares he'd help cause.

He and Bonnie might not agree on much, but she doesn't deserve this. She might be condescending, annoyingly sensible, and too intelligent for her own good, but she will never openly hurt someone for her own gain. She won't even take something she deeply wants if it were to hurt someone else she loves. Secretly, Damon has come to envy that about her. In a way, she's like Stefan when he was human… before Kathrine destroyed that part of him.

She'd destroyed Damon, too. The realization of that settles over him and he swallows dryly. What has his life been for the last 150 years? An old dusty record skipping back to the same lyric over and over. He had hated Stefan for Katherine choosing him. He'd hated Stefan for Elena choosing him.

Pushing the thoughts away, he focuses back on Bonnie. A sheen of sweat covers her face and neck. She is still muttering, but it's quieter now, more frenzied. Her cheeks are flushed and her heart is racing. He can hear it hammering wildly against her chest.

'You're always facing everything alone.' Damon's mind whispers, seemingly afraid to betray the cool silence in his head. 'Where are the ones that really belong by your side? Where are they? They are the ones that deserve to comfort you.'

… but there's only Damon.

"I'm right here, Judgy." He whispers, his fingers caressing her cheek tenderly. "You're the most annoying person I've ever met, but I'm right here." An unexpected smile graces his lips and he is taken aback by how natural it feels. It only widens as Bonnie sighs contentedly and, at last, falls into a restful sleep, her breath warm against his palm.

_'Good night, Bonnie…'_


	3. Grouchy Pants

**TITLE :** Grouchy Pants (P2 of _We're Lost and Found_)

**TIME PERIOD :** Season 6

**Summary :** What had chased her nightmares away?

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><p>Light is the first thing she recognizes as sleep fades away. It's a comfortable sleep that makes her regret opening her eyes. The sun is high in the sky, casting its rays barely beyond the window. Stefan's room is warm, something she seems to already know. Warm, and old, and full of memory. It's not that strange, actually. An open journal sits on a wide table, its beautiful finish glowing in the sun's light. The color of the wood brings even more warmth to the room.<p>

She lies there a moment longer, closing her eyes to see if sleep will possibly come back and drag her down into oblivion. No such luck. She stretches and rolls over to the edge of the bed. That's when she notices a pillow on the floor. Its creases give her the impression that it had recently been slept on. She squints in confusion. Had she knocked it off the bed in her sleep? Making a quick count of the other pillows, she deduces that she hasn't.

Where had it come from? She frowns.

"You up yet, Sabrina?" Damon's voice echoes from downstairs. "Witchy business downstairs. Stop holding seance with your voodoo friends and get down here."

She rolls her eyes. "Disrespectful ass."

Ten minutes later, she appears downstairs to find Damon cooking pancakes. Big surprise. She'd used the toiletries she scavenged from the grocery store along with a set of clothes she'd found in her father's closet back home. They must have been her mother's.

Damon's eyes evaluate her. "What poor defenseless puppy did you have to kill for that getup?"

"Shut up." She mutters as she slides into a seat at a table she'd been sitting at for the last 2 months.

"Easy grouchy pants." He says as he flips a pancake.

Bonnie cuts her eyes at him. "I'm not grouchy… and my pants are none of your business."

"Right now, your pants are the only business, because it gives me something to torment you about." He deadpans.

She sighs and changes the subject. "Will you ever give up on the pancakes?"

He scoffs. "I make damn good pancakes."

"I say this with the utmost sensitivity. Your pancakes taste like-"

"Hey!" He points the spatula at her. "I'm playing mother maid and making you some freakin' pancakes and you will like it."

She grumbles and stretches again, the bones in her back and neck snapping loudly.

"Sleep well?"

"Not that you care, but yes." she grabs the newspaper and flips to the crossword puzzle.

She doesn't catch the secret smirk on his face. "Well perk up, then."

"You're abnormally cheery." She cocks an eyebrow. "Isn't that my department Mr. Natural Negativity."

He turns off the stove and puts the pancakes on a plate. "You know what your problem is, witchy?"

Her lips press into a thin line.

"You ask too many questions." He takes a swig of burbon. "I guess it's in your nature, though, you witches with your witchiness and big noses." He draws his fingers out from the tip of his nose to signify a gigantic hook.

She rolls her eyes dramatically and whirls around in her chair. "You should look up douche in the dictionary. You'll see Damon Salvatore printed in bold letters!"

"Ouch." He mockingly grabs at his chest. "Well, you are the one that knows every word in the English language."

She doesn't even make an effort to snap back at him. Something about today feels strange. She'd slept like the dead, but there is an unsettling feeling at the back of her mind, like a faded memory nagging at her. An image of something… Could it have been a nightmare? Did she have bad dreams again last night? Shaking her head, she looks down at the crossword puzzle.

Damon comes to the table with a set of utensils and two plates of matching pancakes. Bonnie glowers at the decoration of the blueberry face and whipcream fangs he's made as he slides one of the plates in front of her.

"You know I hate that." He mimics her before she can say it.

"You enjoy your petty torments don't you?" She drawls.

Something passes through his eyes, but before she can distinguish it, it's gone. "Indeed, I do."

Odd.

Silence falls over them. It's comfortable, which is something Bonnie has slowly grown used to… and secretly enjoy. Of course, she'd never admit this to Damon aloud. Her eyes furtively sweep over him. He's leaning casually back in his chair, likely propping it back on two legs, with his flannel shirt unbuttoned at the chest, and his hair in a sleepy mess. There is something in his gaze, too, an intensity she's never seen before.

Have I ever seen him this relaxed before? She wonders. "You're not hungry?"

He pauses with a fork of pancake in his mouth, understanding instantly what she's really asking. "It doesn't really matter."

She doesn't press him, but her eyes linger on his expression. The cheerfulness is gone momentarily, but it quickly returns, like the flicker of a flame. Ever since they had landed in this place, Damon has been resisting blood. It wasn't as obvious at first, but then he began cooking and leaving the blood bags brimming full beside his plate of human food.

How long has it been since he's even drank blood?

It almost feels like…

"Did you sleep well?" The words leave her mouth before she can stop them, the question feeling abnormal as it leaves her lips. Why had she asked that?

Damon suddenly looks up, and she catches something, but he diverts his eyes before she can read more into it. "Yup."

That's bizarre. There is no sharp quip or typical Damon sarcasm. It's just a simple, straight answer. She cocks her head to the side, her fork dancing thoughtfully on the plate between her fingers. What had played across his eyes just then? It almost seems like… he looked guilty. She frowns. Guilty for what?

He clears his throat. "Figured out that crossword yet?"

Deflection. She scowls at him. He's hiding something. "No."

"I thought you witches were supposed to be smart." He grins.

He's trying to divert her attention. Her scowl deepens. "We're a lot smarter than you give us credit for, Damon." His name is low whisper.

His eyes lock with hers and a truth passes between them. It is unspoken and so utterly secret. In that moment, she realizes why a pillow was on the hardwood floor beside Stefan's bed where she'd slept. The nightmares. They had plagued her, but at some point during the night, they'd disappeared…

She is the one to clear her throat this time, a choked huff of air whistling between her teeth. All her muscles are tense and she notices Damon taking a hasty swig of orange juice. What does that even taste like to him?

"How about that crossword puzzle, witchy."


End file.
